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[Illustration: BY STILL WATERS.]
[Illustration: SEBIL OF THE MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN KELAUN.]
PEEPS AT MANY LANDS
EGYPT
BY
R. TALBOT KELLY
R.I., R.B.A., F.R.G.S.
COMMANDER OF THE MEDJIDIEH
WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
BY
THE AUTHOR
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1916
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. ITS ANTIQUITY
II. THE LAND
III. CAIRO--I
IV. CAIRO--II
V. THE NILE--I
VI. THE NILE--II
VII. THE NILE--III
VIII. THE MONUMENTS
IX. THE PEOPLE
X. THE DESERT
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SEBIL OF THE MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN KELAUN _frontispiece_
AN IRRIGATED FIELD
AN ARAB CAFE, CAIRO
A MOSQUE INTERIOR
A STREET IN CAIRO
A WATERING-PLACE
THE FIRST CATARACT FROM ELEPHANTINE ISLAND
THE PYRAMIDS OF GHIZEH FROM THE DESERT
THE COLOSSI OF THEBES--MOONRISE
A NILE VILLAGE
DESERT ARABS
BY STILL WATERS _on the cover_
* * * * *
[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF EGYPT.]
* * * * *
EGYPT
CHAPTER 1
ITS ANTIQUITY
Every boy or girl who has read the history of Joseph must often have
wondered what kind of a country Egypt might be, and tried to picture
to themselves the scenes so vividly suggested in the Bible story.
It must have been a startling experience for the little shepherd boy,
who, stolen from his home among the quiet hills of Canaan, so suddenly
found himself an inmate of a palace, and, in his small way, a
participator in the busy whirl of life of a royal city.
No contrast could possibly have been greater than between his simple
pastoral life spent in tending the flocks upon the hillsides and the
magnificence of the city of Pharaoh, and how strange a romance it is
to think of the little slave boy eventually becoming the virtual ruler
of the most wealthy and most highly cultured country in the world!
And then in course of time the very brothers who had so cruelly sold
him into bondage were forced by famine to come to Joseph as suppliants
for food, and, in their descendants, presently to become the meanest
slaves in the land, persecuted and oppressed until their final
deliverance by Moses.
How long ago it all seems when we read these old Bible stories! Yet,
when 4,000 years ago necessity compelled Abraham, with Sarah his wife,
to stay awhile in Egypt, they were lodged at Tanis, a royal city
founded by one of a succession of kings which for 3,000 years before
Abraham's day had governed the land, and modern discoveries have
proved that even before _that_ time there were other kings and an
earlier civilization.
How interesting it is to know that to-day we may still find records of
these early Bible times in the sculptured monuments which are
scattered all over the land, and to know that in the hieroglyphic
writings which adorn the walls of tombs or temples many of the events
we there read about are narrated.
Many of the temples were built by the labour of the oppressed
Israelites, others were standing long before Moses confounded their
priests or besought Pharaoh to liberate his people. We may ourselves
stand in courts where, perhaps, Joseph took part in some temple rite,
while the huge canal called the "Bahr Yusef" (or river of Joseph),
which he built 6,300 years ago, still supplies the province Fayoum
with water.
Ancient Tanis also, from whose tower Abraham saw "wonders in the field
of Zoan," still exists in a heap of ruins, extensive enough to show
how great a city it had been, and from its mounds the writer has often
witnessed the strange mirage which excited the wonder of the
patriarch.
Everywhere throughout the land are traces of the children of Israel,
many of whose descendants still remain in the land of Goshen, and in
every instance where fresh discovery has thrown light upon the subject
the independent record of history found in hieroglyph or papyrus
confirms the Bible narrative, so that we may be quite sure when we
read these old stories that they are not merely legends, open to
doubt, but are the true histories of people who actually lived.
As you will see from what I have told you, Egypt is perhaps the oldest
country in the world--the oldest, that is, in civilization. No one
quite knows how old it is, and no record has been discovered to tell
us.
All through the many thousands of years of its history Egypt has had a
great influence upon other nations, and although the ancient Persians,
Greeks, and Romans successively dominated it, these conquering races
have each in turn disappeared, while Egypt goes on as ever, and its
people remain.
Egypt has been described as the centre of the world, and if we look at
the map we will see how true this is. Situated midway between Europe,
Africa, and Asia in the old days of land caravans, most of the trade
between these continents passed through her hands, while her ports on
the Mediterranean controlled the sea trade of the Levant.
All this helped to make Egypt wealthy, and gave it great political
importance, so that very early in the world's history it enjoyed a
greater prosperity and a higher civilization than any of its
neighbours. Learned men from all countries were drawn to it in search
of fresh knowledge, for nowhere else were there such seats of
learning as in the Nile cities, and it is acknowledged that the highly
trained priesthood of the Pharaohs practised arts and sciences of
which we in these days are ignorant, and have failed to discover.
In 30 B.C. the last of the Pharaohs disappeared, and for 400
years the Romans ruled in Egypt, many of their emperors restoring the
ancient temples as well as building new ones; but all the Roman
remains in Egypt are poor in comparison with the real Egyptian art,
and, excepting for a few small temples, little now remains of their
buildings but the heaps of rubbish which surround the magnificent
monuments of Egypt's great period.
During the Roman occupation Christianity became the recognized
religion of the country, and to-day the Copts (who are the real
descendants of the ancient Egyptians) still preserve the primitive
faith of those early times, and, with the Abyssinians, are perhaps the
oldest Christian church now existing.
The greatest change in the history of Egypt, however, and the one that
has left the most permanent effect upon it, was the Mohammedan
invasion in A.D. 640, and I must tell you something about
this, because to the great majority of people who visit Egypt the two
great points of interest are its historical remains and the beautiful
art of the Mohammedans. The times of the Pharaohs are in the past, and
have the added interest of association with the Bible; this period of
antiquity is a special study for the historian and the few who are
able to decipher hieroglyphic writing, but the Mohammedan era, though
commencing nearly 200 years before Egbert was crowned first King of
England, continues to the present day, and the beautiful mosques, as
their churches are called (many of which were built long before there
were any churches in our own country), are still used by the Moslems.
Nothing in history is so remarkable as the sudden rise to power of the
followers of Mohammed. An ill-taught, half-savage people, coming from
an unknown part of Arabia, in a very few years they had become masters
of Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and Egypt, and presently extended their
religion all through North Africa, and even conquered the southern
half of Spain, and to-day the Faith of Islam, as their religion is
called, is the third largest in the world.
Equally surprising as their accession to power is the very beautiful
art they created, first in Egypt and then throughout Tunis, Algeria,
Morocco, and Spain. The Moslem churches in Cairo are extremely
beautiful, and of a style quite unlike anything that the world had
known before. Some of my readers, perhaps, may have seen pictures of
them and of the Alhambra in Spain, probably the most elegant and
ornate palace ever built.
No country in the world gives one so great a sense of age as Egypt,
and although it has many beauties, and the life of the people to-day is
most picturesque, as we will presently see, it is its extreme
antiquity which most excites the imagination, for, while the whole
Bible history from Abraham to the Apostles covers a period of only
2,000 years, the known history of Egypt commenced as far back as
6,000 years ago! From the sphinx at Ghizeh, which is so ancient that
no one knows its origin, to the great dam at Assuan, monument of its
present day, each period of its history has left _some_ record, some
tomb or temple, which we may study, and it is this more than anything
else which makes Egypt so attractive to thoughtful people.